Action, not tweets

This came as Royal, the mother of four children by Hollande, realised that she might not win the seat she thought was hers for the taking in the Atlantic port of La Rochelle. The first round of the National Assembly election in June left her in a run-off against a dissident Socialist. Opposed to her being "parachuted" into the constituency, the dissident led the main conservative candidate and qualified for the final vote.

Enter Valérie Trierweiler, the woman for whom Hollande left Royal: she broadcast on Twitter her own preference - Royal's rival. The rival won the seat, leaving a woman scorned.

His clear round jolted somewhat by this catfight, Hollande overcame the next hurdle effortlessly when his own Socialist party took a clear majority in the National Assembly the following Sunday. This allows the Socialists to govern without alliances and push through legislation on their own terms.

It was, however, not a totally classic election. The far-right National Front won two seats, both in the south. One went to Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, 22, a granddaughter of the anti-immigration party's founder, Jean-Marie Le Pen, in Carpentras in the Vaucluse department; the other to Gilbert Collard, a well-known Marseille lawyer, in the Gard.

But with the Socialists controlling the Senate and the near-totality of regional, departmental and town councils, the parliamentary elections gave Hollande, who has never before held national office, more powers than any French head of state since Charles de Gaulle founded the Fifth Republic in 1958.

As national media Le Monde pointed out in an editorial the day after the parliamentary vote, this made Hollande the most powerful leader in Europe where no others have such complete control of national institutions.

This gave him a unique and historic responsibility, Le Monde said with some portent: to save Europe.   

The man defeated in the 6th May presidential election - Nicolas Sarkozy - has stayed silent and almost invisible as Hollande has made his first steps at the Elysée Palace.

Other members of Sarkozy's Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party, however, most notably François Fillon, who was a discreet, almost self-effacing Prime Minister for five years, have taken to the foreground.

On the night of the Socialists' parliamentary victory, Fillon, probably positioning himself as the right's candidate for the next presidential election in 2017, acknowledged defeat graciously and wished the new government well, while also reminding Hollande that the ongoing euro zone crisis was a grave one that required economic discipline and tough decisions.

The Left, Fillon said, has "all the powers and is now confronted by its responsibilities. The time of illusions and slogans is over."

A few days earlier, Le Monde, slightly less pompously than usual, also had advice for the new First Lady: "Forget Twitter.”

Julian Nundy